Hastings Rental Health Housing Co-op

Name: Hastings Rental Health Housing Co-op
Address: Hastings, GB
Telephone: +447957989809

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Hastings Rental Health Housing Co-op

Hastings Rental Health Housing Coop is a group aiming to safeguard affordable housing in Hastings, UK Then came the pandemic and mad cost increases.

Hastings Rental Health Housing Co-op is an offshoot of the renters campaign group Hastings Rental Health. Hastings Rental Health was formed by a group of renters fed up with being kicked out, priced out, and treated like rubbish by landlords for years, in most cases DECADES! With little to no hope of owning our own homes, we started campaigning for legislative change, as well as opening up conversations locally about what 2nd home ownership does to the rest of a community on local wages in Hastings. While campaigning, we were regularly struggling and burning out ourselves, because we had our own housing issues to deal with on top of maintaining regular volunteer work. A number of us were forced to move home during the pandemic in an impossibly inflated rental market; which we saw so many local landlords and letting agents feed into; and some of us were dealing with dodgy, mouldy unsafe properties managed by horrendous landlords or letting agents, or struggling to keep our heads above water covering unaffordable rents and then rising bills on top. 2 of our members have now decided the only way to cope is to leave town. The town they grew up in and loved, or the town they moved to because they loved it here. So, a small group of us within HRH decided to tackle the problem head on and set up a housing co-operative. We just can not help others around us until our own foundations are stable. Housing is fundamental to our wellbeing. Mental health is reliant on rental health. Our home is an extension of ourselves. It's almost like another body part. If that's taken from us, we can not function properly. Now imagine changing that body part every 1-3 years. It's no way to live. We need and we want secure long term affordable housing so we can get on with the business of living, working and supporting our community. And we want to normalise the approach of community owned housing. So we are looking for a building to create our own housing, where we as a community will be both the tenants AND the landlords, so that we pay our rents at an affordable price, rather than the the extraction that goes on for passive income to some private landlord. We are not profit, we are not your little money spinners, we are humans, and each human has a basic right to a home.

09/09/2026

Already 1 month has passed since we were at to the .coop gathering. We last went 3 years ago to Derby in the midst of our crowdfunder campaign, a much welcomed rest for Housegirl. This time the gathering was set much closer to home in Lewes, in the Laughton Lodge Community. An old hospital that a group of families and individuals pooled their savings to buy together.

The grounds were beautiful, for what happened to be kneeshell_k and her daughter's first camping trip ⛺️✨️
We won't talk about the time spent wrestling with the inside out tent we were given, just that we eventually got it up!

Some highlights were:

Peaceful times by the giant field head and big oak tree
Perilous rolling under potentially electrical fencing wire (it wasnt electrical)
The tour of the bore hole - which we were told was initially 300m but was then dug to over 1000m.
Woodchip! For a big old wood burner heating system. Which is about 3p a kilowatt as opposed to the av kw we're all getting fleeced with.
Meeting other sussex co-ops, sharing struggles and solutions and regular future check ins and support with coop thequeery

We have started the process of joining Radical Routes. What this means is that we will join working groups within Radical Routes to help it function, and in return, Radical Routes can offer financial support to our co-op.

While we were there we learnt about the set up of Radical Routes, how it finances itself and investment.

We met some good people doing good work, and even got some meteor shower gazing in.

At the next gathering in November, we will present our co-op to the rest of the folks at RR. And at the following gathering in spring, we will hopefully have all aspects in place to present our housing plan and get some of the financial support we will need.

Its been heartening joining the finance group and reading about loans going through and co-ops getting keys to their new homes and more manageable lives. Being part of this group feels like being part of a realm of greater possibilities.

Its just a chunk of the picture, but a vital one 💜🏠💜

05/08/2026

Hello! It’s been a while since, well, March. April was a tricky month as we realised that the site we were going to be developing wasn’t going to work for everyone, so sadly two of our co-op members (respectfully) parted. May was a bit of a haze of ‘what the hell do we do now?’s. So we paused the paid housing co-op co-ordinator role.

During this period, we met some nice folks wanting to join a housing co-op & were also interested in the challenging size of the site, & so the make-up of the co-op looks a little different now, but no less lovely 🌻

While our initial vision involved much more space & surrounding land to grow food, it’s been almost exactly 3 years since the Walk for Homes campaign for Gensing Manor. We’re starting small because we have to, but also at a smaller more manageable scale. As we skill up, we will scale up. This is just the first phase 💪

We’ve also made contact with the new deputy head of housing for East Sussex Andy Shepphard, who has assured us HBC will be pro-actively ‘enabling’ housing co-ops to set up, as mentioned in the Hastings Housing Strategy. We’re not sure what 'enabling' means in concrete terms, but we are awaiting a response for dates on a meeting to help us through planning.

We are currently working with co-op advisor Blase from Confederation of Co-operative Housing. Blase helped Sharon Rhodes and Maslow Co-op set up. He is currently helping us figure out funding to be able to buy not only the land on Queens Road, but also the flat and shop.

Buying everything means more housing, having a commercial aspect to the co-op would help us generate a bit of revenue and make rents more affordable, and we would be able to use more land at the back, making the new homes a bit bigger and more accessible for our members in need ✊️

Finally, Library of Things will be moving into the building next to us! Along with the planned community garden in front of Morrisons, and talk of trialing a one way street and more tree cover, things are getting exciting. Donate to LOT's move here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/community-eco-hub

Pics: HRH, the shop, neighbours LOT, LOT diarama by the mega Shelley 💜, words keeping us going ✨️🧠✨️

18/02/2026

MEETINGS. We can't get enough of the meetings! They are in full swing. Yesterday we met with Simon who has kindly offered us our site! And lovely architect Ken who is working on sketches for FREE! More of this goodness ❤️‍🩹

We talked through some issues and accessibility needs of our members. The next stage is submitting an agreed rough plan for an Approval In Principle with the council. We're told this shouldn't take longer than two months as it's not proper planning yet (the bit that swallows the most time on any building project). We're aiming to submit this with Simon and Ken by the end of March.

Alongside this, over the next month we will be roughing out funding applications for pre-development support and advice with our third business plan and looking at some self-build training. Excitement!
✨️🐎🏠🐎✨️

29/01/2026

WE HAVE A SITE!!!! 🎊
We’re finally able to shout about the news we’ve been dying to share. We finally have a site! To build on!!

GOSH THAT’S QUICK WORK!?
Not exactly. As we mentioned in our previous update, we’ve been waiting since April 2025 to hear back from the council about the larger development with Hastings Commons. We spent many evenings feeding into and attending the housing strategy meetings, banging the drum for co-ops. We kept emailing the council over the months and heard nothing.
While all this was (or wasn’t) going on, the landlord of one of our members got in touch about various buildings he was in the process of buying. His aim was to help new co-ops find potential homes and get on with the business of actually thriving. This means being willing to use one’s privilege, to think a little more radically (though fair housing—come on—is hardly radical), and to practise a basic, everyday humanity and solidarity 🤝 We need more people like this.
Finally, back in August, he got in touch about something that could work…

LAND!
We have some land. Walkable, buildable land!
We’ve met with an architect to assess the site’s feasibility, and the landowner has offered to cover the cost of the first stage: securing an Approval in Principle. He has also offered us the land at cost price. Once again, what is a relatively small thing for him is radical and game-changing for our co-op, and potentially impactful for housing more widely.
The full costs will be worked into our next business plan, which would be 🫠 our third business plan in three years.

SO, WHEN DO YOU MOVE IN?
As this would be a four-unit building, a much smaller project than our partnership with Hastings Commons, we’re exploring doing it as a far more affordable self-build development. We would project-manage the build ourselves, with support and expert guidance from people in our network who do this for a living, alongside community-build groups from around the country.
So, as you’re reading this, our Housing Co-ordinator is very busy getting in touch with these brilliant people and researching funding to start making some of this happen.
Hold tight team, more updates soon
💜
HRH

22/01/2026

🏠WE’RE MOVING!! SORT OF!🏠

HASTINGS RENTAL HEALTH HOUSING CO-OP GETS A BIG JUMPSTART IN 2026 WITH THE APPOINTMENT OF A HOUSING DEVELOPMENT CO-ORDINATOR!

To our wonderful supporters we come into the new year bearing exciting news. We are finally making some headway, & Hastings Rental Health Housing Co-op’s founder Sarah Gomes Harris aka Housegirl will be taking on the paid role of Housing Development Co-ordinator✨️

We’ve had a rocky old time of it the last 3 years, having lost out on a big lovely property, said goodbye to members & regained members, hired an architect, written 2 business plans, partnered on a development with Hastings Commons and Hastings Borough Council, waited a depressing amount of months for a register of interest to surface, and while we haven’t completely given up on this route, we have started some positive discussions with a new private partner and a much less bureaucratic, smaller and quicker project. More to come on that soon 👀

The Housing Development Co-ordinator is a part-time role for 6 months. In this time, the co-ordinator will work to milestones agreed by the co-op’s members. The work will involve liaising with partners, professionals and organisations, regularly updating our supporters, website and social media, writing a new business plan, organising meetings with bigger grant funders and mortgage providers and developing skill-sharing workshops.

How will this be funded? By you! We've barely spent the money raised during our crowdfunder, & as the momentum builds, we feel some of the funds would be wisely spent making sure there is someone keeping on top of things and rising to the challenges. We are on the right track now, with fewer diversions but we can’t make the headway needed without this level of dedicated time.

To the donors who know us personally, many thanks for continuing to support us, talking through the issues and giving us pats on the backs & treats when we get something right! & thank you to those who donated with dreams of better housing. We hope that you’ll feel it will have been worthwhile as you see your donations put to use 💜 Year of the horse 🐎 Year of moving...the good kind! Lets go 2026!

02/12/2024

Hasting Rental Health Housing Co-op joined the Hastings Assembles workshop this Sunday which was all about housing and green spaces. If housing must be built, it must be built AROUND green spaces, not on them. There is no point building housing without looking after the biodiversity that keeps our eco system, our food and our water supply healthy.

We talked to the participants about our upcoming plans and the support we will need to fend off competition by developers who will try their hardest to appeal to local councillors over community led housing. Why choose community led housing over private developers?

Community led housing =

∆ Long term secure truly affordable housing based on local key worker wages and not market rents (market rents are not affordable to local carers, bar staff, cabbies, musicians, painter/decorators etc)

∆ The housing stays in the community. It can not be sold off.

∆ There are no weird half social housing half shared ownership bla bla schemes. The housing is simply owned by the community.

∆ You know the people involved. You bump into them in town and can ask about the project. We are not tucked away in some corporate tower or obscured in several layers of complex webs of dissolved or acquisitioned companies.

∆ Protecting community from outpricing and displacement.

∆ Control over sustainable home building practise using local builders and contractors.

∆ Densification over deforestation: this means building housing on unused or untapped spaces within existing built up areas, and preserving our green spaces.

∆ Autonomy and agency of co-operative tenants to manage and repair their home rather than having to wait for unreliable or irresponsible housing associations or landlords to do these jobs. Which also fosters a more skilled community.

∆ Rents as affordable as social housing for tenants leaving temporary accommodation

∆ All housing is affordable, all tenants are equal, no one pays more or less for the same space, and no one has more or less power or say in the running of the co-operative. Decisions are made by consensus, in a sociocratic democratic way.

∆ Lower rents have a ripple effect on wider market rents. The more affordable and safeguarded housing is, the more choice renters have, and the less bu****it we need to put up with.

∆ Homes to live in, not for profit

29/11/2024

Hastings Rental Health Housing Co-op is now part of the steering group for Hastings Borough Council's Housing Strategy alongside .hastings and Citizens Advice Bureau. The message from all of us was loud and clear, more listening to those most impacted, and more community led housing solutions, CLTs and housing co-ops.

Decisions cant keep being made over our heads. Think long term, stop putting money into private entities and invest in homes that stay affordable and within Hastings community.

31/10/2024

How affordable is affordable housing? Where are all these people coming from that can afford this housing? Where are all these high paid jobs coming from for this housing? Space?

At this point in time we need to take a realistic responsible look at whats going on on this planet. Unnaffordable homes are being built everywhere, displacing people all over, for the profit of a small amount of wealthy people. What we need is a big wave of not for profit housing to be able to house normal people truly affordably,

This is where co-operative community owned housing - that is purely to live in and not created for any other purpose than homes to live in - is crucial.

Image from video by on average new afforeable housing costs. Please follow them and watch

04/10/2024

Hastings Rental Health joined several campaigners and alternative housing organisations yesterday (along with a whole chunk of landlords) to discuss the new Council Housing Strategy for the years to come. We have been in discussion with council as a co-operative because they recognise it is cheaper to support new co-ops than it is to buy as a council who is already shelling out millions a year for temporary accommodation. With many new small co-ops, people in TA would have homes, the list would go down, more homes would be safeguarded from Right to Buy profiteering (which as a council buulding new social housing, they cannot protect) and rents would stay affordable. This has a knock on effect on local economy as people have more disposable income to spend in businesses, keeping shops open. Wins all round.

Address

Hastings

Telephone

+447957989809

Website

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/hrh-co-op---walk-for-homes/updates/204594#start

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